


Liquor and Lace

by Belldam



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Hate Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 17:51:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belldam/pseuds/Belldam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haymitch and Effie meet for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liquor and Lace

They were just another set of kids sent to him to die. Fourteen and seventeen, and Haymitch couldn’t help them anymore, couldn’t bring out the spirit in children whose district had beaten it out of them. Six years of experience told him not to bother leaving his room until someone made him. Last year it had been a tribute, an angry young girl pounding on his door and slinging insults at him until he helped. He’d liked her. The audience didn’t; her contempt for them flared through her eyes even as she tried to laugh next to Caesar Flickerman, and she’d died midway through in a Game Maker constructed accident. 

This year, it was the escort who dragged him out. A ridiculous piece of Capitol trifle, she was new to the Games and burning with anger at the injustice of getting District Twelve. As soon as he heard her saccharine nattering about desserts die off from the other car, and her heels started clicking towards his, he knew she’d been sent by God to punish him. 

She rapped on his door politely, trilling, “Haymitch! Come join us for dinner. You haven’t even met our tributes properly!” The word “tribute” rolled off her tongue with delight and dropped at his doorstep as a little pearl of excitement. Their tributes may just be coal miner’s brats, but he could feel her delight to be this close to the heart of the Games. He dragged himself off the bed, bottle of whiskey in hand, and crossed over to open the door.

“No thanks, sweetheart.”

She pursed her lips, brow furrowing as she leaned in, dropping her voice to a deadly whisper, “Haymitch Abernathy, get out there now, meet the tributes you have to train, and stop making me look like a fool.” Haymitch shrugged, knowing that nothing he could do would stop them from thinking that. Her hair framed her face in perfectly curled ringlets, dyed an oddly metallic silver to match her eyes, and her skin was dusted with gold to match everything from the miniature top hat clipped to her hair to her ruffled heels. All the latest styles for the last month in the Capitol, he was sure. Just as he was sure she thought herself a goddess come to bless these children, nevermind the fact that she’d look barely human to a couple of district kids. 

The new escort snatched his bottle from his hand before he could think, splashing what little was left onto his shirt.

“Oh, what a shame. Well, there are plenty of refreshments at the dinner table, Haymitch,” she said crisply, turning on one heel and clicking off back to the dining car. “Why don’t you get changed and join us.” 

Haymitch watched her leave, shocked. His last escort gave up on him quickly, settling for staying out of his company as much as possible. No bite to her at all. He sure as hell didn’t like Effie, but he had to admit she was more interesting than the last. Deciding it was worth it to size up the tributes and Effie Trinket, he changed shirts and headed into the dining car.

\--  
The tributes didn’t seem like much. The boy was slight and dark-haired, a kid from the Seam who seemed to have given up from the moment his name was called. He listened to Haymitch’s advice distantly, and Haymitch could tell the boy might take some of it, but didn’t believe he’d make it. He almost couldn’t blame the kid. It wasn’t hard to tell that he was half-starved and sickly. It would be a miracle if the Capitol food didn’t kill him before he got off the train. The girl had fight in her, but refused to listen to a word he said. He didn’t think he’d even have to watch to know she’d be killed in the Cornucopia. 

Just as closely as he watched the tributes, he watched Effie Trinket. She was the Capitol embodied: frivolous, air-headed and dim. But there was a sharpness in her, a cutthroat ambition that lent her command over others. He hated everything about her. 

He also saw the way she looked at him, when she thought no one could see. As much as she disapproved of him, she couldn’t seem to keep from watching when he left a room. He ignored it. If he knew his Capitol women - and damned if he didn’t after all these years - he knew exactly which books Effie spent her lonely nights with. Books full of men like him, swarthy district men with insatiable appetites for the pristine women of the Capitol. Tributes and victors who’d only dreamt of beauty like theirs, rough and filthy and in desperate need of a woman’s civilizing touch. Effie Trinket was the star of her own novel, like every other Capitol person he’d ever met, and he knew she wanted nothing more than to drag him in and tame him. She wanted to suit him up and tone him down, parade him in front of cameras and show the world how she could fix District Twelve. Without admitting that she’d fucked him, of course, because what woman would touch a drunkard from the poorest district? 

After everything he’d given in his stupid attempt to undermine the Games, he wasn’t throwing it away on a few nights with some doxy.

\--

The Games were just barely underway, a flurry of interviews and stylists, and tension was already high. Effie flitted about like a deranged hummingbird, not content to allow anyone to do their job without her help. It was her first year, and Haymitch could tell she didn’t plan on spending a second with District Twelve. Turning out the second victor in her first year would surely catapult her somewhere glamorous.

Over the days before the start of the Games, Haymitch could feel his hatred changing. Never diminishing, but transforming. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the stress, or just the curve of her ass in those pencil skirts, but he was starting to return her glances. He could have her. He could have her in his way, and never give in to her influence, to her Capitol goals. He could play this game and win.

So he joined her in front of the television one night, where she sat and obsessed over interview clips, as if there was something she could do to make these kids more appealing. He poured her a glass of wine and set it in front of her. She lifted it and took a sip without saying a word. Settling back on the couch with a glass of bourbon for himself, he told her, "This isn't your job."

"It is." She pursed her lips, scowling at the screen instead of Haymitch. "I have to make them behave for their audience." Haymitch snorted.

"Nothing you do is going to make those kids Capitol-ready. They don't have the sense or will that God gave a moth."

Effie sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why these kids?"

Haymitch chose to bite his tongue, downing his bourbon instead of telling her exactly why they got these kids. He let silence stretch for a moment before saying, "Just forget about it tonight. Worry in the morning."

He watched her carefully, her brow furrowing with worry, clearly unused to letting something be out of her control.

"Let it go." He put a hand on her knee, and for a second he thought she would slap him. She relaxed instead, watching him from the corner of her eye.

“Just what are you suggesting, Haymitch?” She shifted towards him as she said it, and Haymitch wished he didn’t understand why women like her played at being coy. But it wasn’t as if he were desirable. He was nothing more than a shameful fantasy, a career-killing secret.

“Fuck, don’t play that game with me.” And when he leaned in to kiss her, she met him there. Effie kissed gently, fluttering her eyes shut and sighing like a romance heroine. Anger boiled in Haymitch’s core. He was disgusted with everything this woman was, and determined not to let her have her way. Or, at least, to drag that sharpness out of her, make her fight for it. He bit her lips, and her sigh blossomed into a gasp. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he held her there and kissed her hard. 

She pulled away from him and slapped him across the face, the sound ringing through the empty living room. 

“What was that?” she hissed.

“What did you expect-” Haymitch cut off with a sharp gasp when Effie grabbed a fistful of his curls, nails digging into his scalp. She kissed him with the same malice, and that was a surprise, but Haymitch rolled with it, grabbing her hips and pulling her onto his lap. Her hands found their way to the buttons of his shirt, popping them open as she nipped venomous kisses down his throat. He rolled his hips up against hers in return, warmth and need pooling low in his belly. Effie rocked back against him, her skirt hiking up as she spread her legs to position herself better. 

“Well, you got ready for that fast.” He grinned at her, rolling his hips pointedly. Effie bit into his shoulder in response, dragging her nails down his chest. 

“You are trash,” she hissed at him.

“And what does that make-” Once again she cut him off, scoring down his chest a second time, leaving red welts behind. Haymitch arched beneath her, choking down his moan. “Fucking- that, do that.” She obliged, and he grabbed her ass as she did, pulling her down against the outline of his hardening cock. 

They rutted against each other like teenagers for a painful eternity before Haymitch reached down to unbutton his pants. Effie slid off his lap to pull her panties off, and he pulled his cock out, stroking himself to the image before him. This painfully proper woman balancing on one high heel to pull her underwear off for him, her dress shoved up and wrinkled, her cheeks flushed under the dusting of silver powder. 

She slapped his hand away and pushed him against the couch, bracing her hands against his shoulders as she slid onto him, grimacing at the pain. After taking a moment to adjust, she began to move against him. He reached down to rub her clit as she did, watching as her mask of propriety slipped away and laid her pleasure bare for him, making her seem more vulnerable than if he’d stripped her. They met each other in second brutal kiss, trading bites and breathless insults, tokens of hatred and expressions of disdain for everything the other was. 

Effie came loudly, failing to suppress a high wail of pleasure. She pulled Haymitch’s hair so hard he couldn’t think, and the pain sent him over the edge just a few moments after her, thrusting up into her and hissing in quiet contrast to her climax. Just for a moment after they finished, Effie let herself fall against Haymitch, breathing heavily. Slowly, she came back to herself, pushing herself off of him and gingerly straightening her clothes. He watched her carefully avoid looking at him, and knew he’d regret this as much as she did in the morning. 

She hesitated before leaving, opening her mouth as if to say something, but turned on her heel instead and marched toward her room. There were no harlequin fantasies left in her, no naive romance novel notions of what a Capitol woman meant to a district man. He tucked himself back into his pants and stretched out on the couch, deciding to mark this one a victory.


End file.
